The best definition I
can come up with for the “Architecture of Fascism in Naples”
is “buildings put up in Naples in the 1920s and 1930s.”
That, I realize, would be cheating my way around many
definitions. With apologies, I am confused by the terms of
20th-century architecture: Bauhaus, International style, Art
Deco, Constructivism, Organicism, Modernism, Functionalism,
Futurism, etc.—and I have barely scratched the façade. (Most
of those styles, by the way, dropped you down the elevator
shaft if you tried to put so much as even one ornamental
scratch on their façades!) One of the most confusing terms
is the one given to much architecture in Italy in the 1920s
and 1930s: Fascist Rationalism. It seems to combine two
irreconcilable terms.

First: Fascist. Mussolini’s call in the 1920s for a
“Fascist style” produced many buildings in Italy inspired by
past architectural glories. Among these were the “Imperial”
style with Roman features such as columns and façades
adorned with eagles; the “Palladian” style, with arcades,
porticoes and arches without ornamentation; and the
“Baroque” (endearingly called by the diminutive, barochetto) with
ridiculous amounts of ornamentation dripping off the
facades. All of that is an historical approach to
architecture: using the past, as Mussolini said, “…to serve
as a source of training and encouragement for the
advancement of the aims of the nation.” You expect an
architectural corollary; that is, Fascist Italy spent much
of the 1920s excavating imperial Rome—the Theater of
Marcellus, the Trajan Forum, the forum of Caesar, the forums
of Augustus and Nerva. All these were opened and seen for
the first time in 1500 years. The glorious past had been
rediscovered; the new architecture should somehow reflect
that.

ANMIG
(1938-40. Camillo Guerra)

Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro (1938. A.
Brasini)

Second: Rationalism, the
non-historical approach. Modern architecture was dedicated
to the concept that form followed function, that
ornamentation was a crime, and that—in Le Corbusier’s words—
“a house is a machine for living." Rationalism meant science
and reason, not history. How, then, to have a building that
is both (1) historical and (2) rational, meaning that it
should fit the functional "machine" aesthetic of the new
architecture? Welcome to Fascist Rationalism.

Some who write about the conflict of those two
extremes in Italian architecture say that the modern school
lost out to the historical school—termed “stripped
Classicism”—by the early 1930s; thus, you might expect
monolithic and useless temples erected to the power of the
state. Many of the buildings in Naples from the 1930s,
however, do not bear that out. Yes, they are obviously
“Classical” (though “stripped” of ornamentation); yet,
they are functional.

Bank
of Naples (1940. M. Piacentini)

Istituto
nazionale delle Assicurazioni (1938. M. Canino)

“Rationalist Row,” if
you will, in Naples centers on Piazza Matteotti. There you
have the main post office (see
that link for interior photos); it looks like a marble and
glass (and very functional) bee-hive. Indeed, the façade is
a giant parabola with rows of small practical windows,
behind which sat small practical drones who stared out at
New Rome while they cheerfully misdirected your letters. But
the interior has so much non-functional wasted imperial
space that you could float your blimp in there while you buy
stamps. One should note that the architects of the post
office went to great ends to preserve an important bit of
Neapolitan past by actually incorporating the courtyard of
the old Mount of Olives monastery into the new structure
(photo, below, right).

Nearby is the Provincial Administration building,
called one of the outstanding examples of Rationalist
architecture in Italy (photo, top of page, left). Across the
street is the ANMIG (Wounded War Veterans) building; up at
the corner is the Banca
Nazionale del Lavoro and one block away is the Istituto nazionale delle
assicurazioni (National Insurance Building).
Elsewhere there are other examples: the passenger terminal
at the port, the Bank of Naples on via Toledo (aka via Roma)
and outside of Naples, in Fuorigrotta, the Mostra
d’Oltremare (Overseas Fair Grounds). All of
those sites were finished between 1935-40. Holdovers from
the 1920s in Naples include the Cardarelli
hospital—a weird mixture of a neo-Classical façade and
a futuristic interior—and the Mergellina
train station, solid barochetto, where the ornamentation is so
syrupy that trains have been known to stick to the tracks.

Monotti,
Francesco. “Architecture in Italy.”New
York Times,
November 1, 1931.

Scolari,
Margaret. “In the Triennale, International Style
Triumphs.”New York Times, August 6, 1933.

(The inscription below the title at the top of this page
is on the post office. Such inscriptions typically
included the standard date as well as the "Era Fascista"
date, measured from the founding of the "new
empire"—that is, in this case, 14
years after Mussolini's march on Rome.)